15-Day Marrakech to Casablanca Tour: Coast, Sahara & Imperial Cities

Your driver-guide meets you in the arrivals hall at Marrakech airport and takes you into the city in a private vehicle.

If you arrive in the morning, you visit the Majorelle Garden before checking in: a peaceful garden of bamboo, cactus and fountains around an intensely blue villa. Tickets are timed, and we help you book them. Your bags stay safely in the car.

Afternoon and evening arrivals go directly to the hotel or riad. The rest of the evening is free, with your guided city tour planned for tomorrow.

After yesterday's arrival and the Majorelle Garden, today you explore the medina with a licensed guide. The Koutoubia is the first stop, followed by the Bahia Palace with its carved cedar and courtyards.

The Saadian Tombs and the old Jewish quarter come next. After lunch you walk through the souks, where your guide shows you dyers, metalworkers and slipper makers.

The Ben Youssef Madrasa is an optional extra, and the evening belongs to Jemaa el-Fna.

After your arrival and guided day in Marrakech, you head west to the coast. The plain fills with argan trees, and a women's cooperative shows how argan oil is made by hand.

In Essaouira you explore the medina and walk the Skala, the ocean rampart lined with old cannons, with the woodworkers' shops in its arches.

In the late afternoon, watch the fishing boats come into the harbour, and choose your own fish for dinner.

A free morning in Essaouira: walk the ramparts one last time, stroll along the beach or pick up the thuya wood box you saw yesterday, before leaving around midday.

The drive back crosses argan country again, with a coffee stop and, if you missed it, a visit to a cooperative.

You arrive in Marrakech in the afternoon and can spend the evening on Jemaa el-Fna, before tomorrow's journey over the High Atlas.

Today you leave Marrakech for the south. The road climbs gently through Amazigh villages to the Tizi n'Tichka pass, with stops for the views.

After the pass you detour to Telouet, with its decorated Glaoui palace, and follow the Ounila Valley down to Ait Ben Haddou.

In the late afternoon you explore the ksar with fewer visitors around, and the night is in a guesthouse nearby or in Ouarzazate.

Today you follow the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs east from Ouarzazate. In Skoura you visit Kasbah Amridil among the date palms.

In Kalaat M'Gouna, centre of the Valley of Roses, a cooperative shows you how rosewater is distilled.

The Dades Gorge follows, with its red cliffs, the Monkey Fingers and the hairpin bends. You have dinner and sleep at a family-run guesthouse in the valley.

The morning starts with the Monkey Fingers, seen on a short drive up the Dades Gorge, before the road leads east to Tinghir.

Todra Gorge follows: a walk on foot between cliffs some 300 metres high, with the river beside you, then lunch nearby.

In the afternoon you reach Erfoud and Merzouga, where camels carry you into the dunes for sunset. The night is in a desert camp, with dinner and drumming under the stars.

A sunrise over the Sahara starts the day: from a high dune you watch the sand turn from grey to gold. After breakfast in camp a camel or 4x4 takes you back to the village.

The rest of the morning is a 4x4 tour of the desert's edges: Khamlia's Gnawa musicians, the dark plain of the black desert, the old lead mines and a nomad tent where tea is shared.

The afternoon is free at your hotel, and the night is beside the dunes before tomorrow's drive to Fes.

After a last desert sunrise, the road takes you north along the Ziz River to a viewpoint over its palm-filled canyon.

Past Errachidia, the Ziz gorges and a tunnel cut by French legionnaires lead to Midelt for lunch.

In the afternoon the Middle Atlas unfolds, with cedar forests and Barbary macaques, and after a short stop in Ifrane you reach Fes in the evening.

A day on foot in Fes el-Bali with a licensed local guide. You enter through Bab Boujloud and follow the main lanes past fountains, mosques and the workshops of carpenters, weavers and leatherworkers.

Stops include a madrasa of exquisite tile and carving, the doors of the Al-Qarawiyyin university, the coppersmiths' square and the Chouara tannery, seen from above with a sprig of mint.

After lunch you drive to the Royal Palace, the Mellah and a ceramics cooperative, and end with a view over the city. Tomorrow the road goes north to Chefchaouen.

Today you leave the imperial city for the blue town. The road crosses wheat fields and olive groves and climbs into the Rif, past reservoirs and villages.

In Chefchaouen, after lunch, you wander through lanes painted in every blue, visit the kasbah and walk up to the spring of Ras el Ma.

In the evening, the path to the Spanish Mosque leads to a sunset view over the town. The night is in a riad in the medina.

A free day in Chefchaouen, the blue town of the Rif. It was founded in 1471 and settled by families from Andalusia, and the blue that made it famous came centuries later.

In the morning, explore before the crowds: the kasbah and its garden, the weavers' workshops, and the spring of Ras el Ma, where women wash carpets in the stream.

In the afternoon, enjoy a glass of tea on the square, buy wool, leather or goat's cheese, or walk up to the Spanish Mosque for the sunset view.

A last breakfast in Chefchaouen, then the road leads down from the mountains, through Ouazzane and across the Gharb plain to Rabat.

In the early afternoon you visit the capital's monuments: the Hassan Tower, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V and the Kasbah of the Udayas.

The medina offers relaxed shopping along Rue des Consuls, and the night is in a riad or hotel in Rabat.

After breakfast you leave Rabat and drive about an hour down the coast to Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco and the face of the modern country.

The day's highlight is the Hassan II Mosque, standing partly over the sea with a 210-metre minaret; the guided visit shows the prayer hall, the ablution rooms and the hammam. Then you drive along the Corniche, see the Art Deco centre around Mohammed V Square and walk through the arcades of the Habous quarter.

You check in to your hotel in the late afternoon, with the evening free for dinner by the ocean.

Your last morning in Morocco is free. Depending on your flight time, enjoy a late breakfast, a walk along the Corniche or some shopping in the Habous quarter or the central market.

At the agreed time your driver takes you from your hotel to Mohammed V International Airport, about 45 minutes away, in good time for check-in. For early flights, you leave straight after breakfast, or before it.